The Discussion Dilemma

To belie or not to belie, that is the question

Whether tis nobler to suffer the stings and narrows of outrageous opinions

Or to take arms against their sea of Trumples

And by opposing, try to end them.

There is the familiar axiom that conversations should avoid religion and politics. Too controversial.  I don’t agree with that, especially now. What could be more important than an exchange of ideas about the aspects of life that most profoundly effect it. Yet, few people want to engage in those discussions.

Oh, we talk about that stuff with the people who agree with us. When we do, we can’t come up with enough demeaning adjectives to describe our orange President. That’s not the problem. The echo chamber is reinforcing, but it gets us nowhere. What we don’t do nearly enough is talk about this stuff with the people who don’t agree with us, the Trump supporters.

 We have our reasons for this, and some of them make good sense. The main justification is that it does no good.  Our views are so ingrained that regardless how much we talk to those with different ones, no minds will change. This very well may be so.  It is especially so when the people we talk with not only have their own opinions but, as Senator Moynihan famously said, “they can’t  also have their own facts”, even worse, as Ms. Conway called them, “alternative facts.”

So, what do we do? Should we give up? Maybe. I tend to think, though, that this stuff is much too serious to just shrug away. Day after day it becomes clearer that the re-election of this monster will inevitably alter the lives of our children (and grandchildren) and hardly for the better.  Would we just shrug off any other threat to our progeny?  We don’t do that in other situations. We won’t stand still if our kids are bullied.  Yet, all of us are now being bullied.  Another Trump term and the bullying will expand exponentially.  Rules of law and ethics and accepted practice will be meaningless. The Trump tyrants will do whatever they want to do.

Am I being melodramatic? Nope. As I write this, the Trumpian Sycophants are willing to selfishly and transparently turn their backs on everything they said four years ago and force a new Supreme Court Justice on us at the end of a Presidential term. Of course, that makes them hypocrites. But, more than that, it makes them bullies, too. As I write this, I hear a report that our Dear Leader expressed the view that when you have the Senate, you can do whatever you want.  How’s that for bullying. And bullies with rejuvenated power, well, it’s even hard to think about.

My answer to the discussion dilemma then is this: challenging the Trump “thinkers”maynot get us anywhere, but not challenging them certainlywon’t get us anywhere. The stakes are too high.  Speak up.